The Big Problem with Buyer Personas in Content Marketing and What to Do About It

Before I delve into the topic of today’s little post, I find myself sitting at the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark after being here a full week and soaking in the incredible culture that is Danish life. My body has stayed on east coast time, which means it’s currently 4:30am in the morning, but as I was reflecting on this past week and the many Danish businesses I was able to speak to, my mind was brought back to a specific question that has been appearing a good bit more on my radar as of recently—Marketing Personas. (aka your “ideal” customer.)

Paralysis by Buyer Persona Analysis

Before I dive into my thoughts here, let me stress that I’m NOT against defining marketing personas.

Actually, I’m just the opposite.

That being said, I do think the quest for defining marketing personas has seriously stalled or even paralyzed many companies from actually getting work done, especially when it comes to producing great content.

Over the past few years (and a good bit lately as I’ve given more and more talks and workshops) many folks have asked me why I don’t speak much about marketing personas.

My answer to this goes back to what I feel is the essence of content marketing—4 simple principles that are timeless but quite misunderstood in this space:

Listen (Are you obsessed with the way your prospects and customers ask questions? Are you obsessed with their pain points? Are you obsessed with the way they think, feel, and act with respect to *their* needs.)

Communicate (Do you talk, write, and speak in a way your audience not only understands you, but says, “This person gets me.”

Teach (Do you see yourself as a teacher, truly in it for the student (customer) or are you more interested in you, your product, and your glorious company?)

Help (Are you constantly thinking about how you can help your prospects and customers solve their problems?)

If you look at those 4 principles, hopefully you’ll see it’s a natural byproduct to understand/identify your personas.

The Natural Process of Identifying Buyer Personas

Let’s say you have two B2B prospects in two different industries. Are they going to be asking the same questions? Will they have the exact same needs?

Of course the answer is “no.” They will have different needs based on *who they are.*

This, in my opinion, is the essence of understanding personas.

In other words, if we adhere to the basics the process of identifying our buyer personas it will happen quite naturally.

Recently, I got an email from a reader and this is exactly what it said:

Marcus, Not sure if you are aware already but take a look at the “Buyer Persona” template from Hubspot, which I’ve attached. A heavy lifting process that may well create the old analysis-paralysis phenomenon for a small business or a solopreneur and certainly with my client. It could well delay or even stop the content machine from firing up and getting into action right away. I do prefer the pragmatic approach from The Sales Lion….

I don’t share this email in a “look at me, I’m smarter than HubSpot” manner, but rather to make this point:

For the majority of companies around the world, the more complicated you make sales and marketing, the less they’ll actually get done.

It is for this reason the phrase “They Ask, You Answer” has worked so very well these past 5 years. It’s simple. Small businesses and big brands get it. And because they get it, they get stuff done.

But too many times over the past few years have I had companies give me a story that sounds something like this:

Company: Marcus, we are on our way with content marketing. We’ve identified all of our marketing personas!

Me: That’s wonderful. But how much content have you actually produced?

Company: Well, not much, but we’ve identified our marketing personas!

And so it goes…

Get Stuff Done (#GSD)

The great divide of the digital world are the companies willing to move fast, make mistakes as they go, and okay with “figuring it out” as they go.

And this is the essential key to buyer personas that most companies fundamentally do not understand:

Until you become a true teacher and “Youtility” to your prospects and customers, it’s impossible to know who your ideal personas are.

Until you’ve been in business for some time, and gotten a chance to work with a variety of clients, it’s impossible to know who your ideal personas are.

And until you’ve had the chance to produce content (become a great teacher) and watch what gets results and what does not(as you’re listening to your audience the entire time) it’s impossible to know who your buyer personas are.

Oh, and one final point: Because your business is always evolving, so are your buyer personas.

Isn’t that nice? 🙂

My point here my friends is a simple one—We need to do the work. We need to listen, communicate, teach, and help. And along the way, assuming we do this well, we just may understand that little thing we call “buyer personas.”

Terrific Marcus. Sound advice. Just DO marketing. And thanks for the Youtility plug!

February 6, 2015 at 9:17 am

Paul Wolfe

Hey Bro

I’ve been thinking about personas recently for various reasons – glad you brought up the topic of personas.

Here’s my take: if you already have customers and clients or prospective customers and clients you don’t need personas. What you need is a ‘target profile.’

A target profile is a real life, living, breathing person who ideally is the kind of customer or client that you want 10 more. Or 100 more of. Or 1000 more of.

Here’s how the target profile trumps personas – you email or call the target profile and ask if you can get them on the phone or on skype for 30 minutes. Or if you live near to them ask if you can meet them in the local Starbucks for a coffee.

If you’re doing your job right in the first place most of these potential target profiles will say yet.

When you hook up with them you ask them questions and you record the conversation. The kind of questions you ask them are: what problems are you currently having? What’s your biggest problem? What are you actually trying to achieve? What products have you tried already? Why did those products not work? What was good about them? What wasn’t? And so on.

And then you listen.

If you do this with just one target profile you’ll get ideas for blog posts and other content types, ideas for products to create for your target audience, and maybe even the ‘language’ that your target audience uses. And that authentic language will help attract future clients just like the target profile.

It’s much quicker than constructing a ‘persona’ and the information you get is as real time and as real world as you can get. Seriously give it a try and you’ll be floored by the results you get.

Hope that’s of interest.

Paul

February 6, 2015 at 9:44 am

Jose J.

Hi Marcus,

Loved this post. In my company we’re planning to start producing content marketing and I’ve been insisting my Sales colleagues to help me by defining the Buyer Persona profiles they interact with the most.

I think this shouldn’t be a difficult task for professionals who’ve been in the industry for a while. However, I’m not getting much of a buy-in from them or my manager in this regard.

I think we should start working on content and see what works and what doesn’t. But I also think Paul has a point, even if his definition of ‘target profile’ sounds a lot like that of the buyer persona.

I must admit I’m relieved to see that I’m not the only one struggling with this topic!

February 6, 2015 at 10:11 am

Oscar

Marcus,

Your topic on Buyer Personas was well timed. I am a new Hubspot partner and had a discussion with a client recently about developing personas and your point that businesses who are new in content and may not even know who their ideal persona is – was spot on. Many businesses developing business plans believe they have that covered in the “Marketing Strategy” section. However, knowing who your target market is and who you are going to write to are 2 totally separate things.

For example, I have a client that offers outsourcing for back-office solutions (accounting, payroll, and HR). She proceeded to tell me that they target small businesses and mostly in the professional service area, among some other key differentiators. After starting to blog for them, I started to notice some topics resonating better with some clients than others. I couldn’t make it out at first because I had built their personas based what the clients “target market”. It was a persona issue! When I would write on an accounting topic, this did not resonate well with personas with HR or Payroll needs. Even though a client was a SBO and offering professional services, this did not get granular enough to identify their pain points as well as their interests. For this client, identifying a persona that has a need for accounting but has a full-time HR director is much different than a business owner with a full-time CPA and has been looking for a payroll provider.

Since then, I have been focusing on the newly modeled personas and am currently in the 1st month of developing their content. Wish me luck!

I hope this helps add depth to the conversation and enjoy your Danish experiences and travels!!!

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February 6, 2015 at 10:51 am

Sally Black

In the family travel business, our personas could be likened to all those moving targets in the carnival shooting gallery. The needs of families, parents, kids – even extended family members constantly change & evolve with every year. We don’t have just one customer – we have to make EVERYBODY in the family happy and satisfied in order to close a sale. Marketing personals have been helpful when it comes to creating different voices for our blogs, videos & social media content but positioning ourselves as teachers and problem solvers closes more sales.

February 6, 2015 at 11:05 am

Martin Jones

Great to see this post today. I gave a 30 min talk at #DSP15 yesterday along similar lines. There needs to be a clear distinction between “buyer personas” and “audience personas”. Too many times a “buyer persona” excludes many of the people that influence the decision maker. Awesome post!

February 6, 2015 at 1:15 pm

Matt Lowery

Great post Marcus. I asked and you answered. Much appreciated. Great feedback in the blog comments too. #GSD

February 6, 2015 at 2:15 pm

Ryan Scott

Marcus, you hit the nail on the head. I’ve had a distaste for the traditional buyer persona methodology for a while now. At Lean Labs, we’ve been working on a way to simplify the process to determine the following:

– What are their pain points – What are their main objections – What are they looking for – How can we benefit them by addressing those 3 points

Knowing these allows you to effectively create content that matters. It’s much more important, in my opinion, to know the problems they’re having that knowing where they live, what kind of music they like, and if they have a pet or not.

February 6, 2015 at 3:05 pm

Denise Kilmer

You really hit the nail on the head with your final comment, “because your business is always evolving, so are your buyer personas.” My company has been around for 28 years and we are in a continual evolution. We would be dead in the water if this was not so. The need to meet our customers needs by adding new technology has helped give us a leg up into new markets. For example, recently we purchased a ZUND digital cutter to make our finishing department match or surpass the speed of our graphics production. The ZUND will also enable us to expand into new markets, such as repeatable signs for retail P.O.P.. Adding new personas for our company is an investment in the success of our future!

February 7, 2015 at 11:22 am

Amelia wilcox

That’s exactly what I was needing to hear right now! Since I’m pretty much working on all this solo right now (we are interviewing for a content marketing person to help me right now…), I’ve been feeling like a big heavy weight was on my shoulders with this hanging over my head. I’ve been trying to pick away at them as much as I can, but at the expense of producing content as often. I think I’ll focus on content and hold off on the personas till I have some help. Thanks for writing that!

February 8, 2015 at 12:21 pm

Amadou M. Sall

Amazing, Marcus. I always thought you have to identify your Buyer Persona BEFORE you know who you’re going to write for. Here I learn it’s the other way round: write first, and then know who your Buyer Persona is. One truly never ceases to learn! OK then, let me try this for my next project…

February 8, 2015 at 6:19 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Well, I think it’s a little bit of knowing before, and a lot of learning after Amadou 🙂 But either way, continued success with this!!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:20 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Hey bud, I’m going to do a post on how to interview a content manager this coming week, so look for that 🙂

February 8, 2015 at 6:21 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Denise, so glad you enjoyed the article 🙂 To evolving!!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:21 pm

Marcus Sheridan

LOVE the simplicity of this my man.

And let me just say, Lean Labs is lucky to have you!!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:22 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Yeah, gotta love it when the peeps below the article are smarter than the person writing it. That makes me smile every time bud 🙂

Have a great week ahead!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:23 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Martin, that would actually be a great article: Buyer vs Audiences Personas: Understanding the Difference

Write it dude!!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:24 pm

Marcus Sheridan

GREAT point Sally. In your industry, the amount of “personas” is just about an unending number, isn’t it!

Have a great week ahead!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:26 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Oscar, this was great!! And you gave such a perfect example of what I was trying to say in the article– the more we teach and produce content the more we realize who it is we’re actually talking to.

Great work!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:30 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Jose, have you had a combined workshop with Sales and Marketing yet? If not, it’s a MUST bud. Unless they understand the what, how, and why of Content Marketing— you won’t get the buy in you seek.

Good luck!!

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:31 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Paul!!! Old friend, how are you?? I see you’re as smart as ever brother. Loved this comment and how it added to the discussion.

Appreciate you and hope you’re well,

Marcus

February 8, 2015 at 6:31 pm

Marcus Sheridan

Amen brother. Appreciate you!!

Marcus

February 17, 2015 at 4:34 am

Lisa Toner

Hey Marcus!

Interesting take on the concept and implementation of personas. I completely agree with you that you need to do business before you can understand who your most profitable customers are, how else would you be able to identify your ‘ideal customer’? I do, however, strongly believe in the power of researching and documenting that buyer persona once you’ve been up and running long enough to see where the majority of your revenue is coming from. Plus, it’s not only a marketing activity, but everyone across the organisation should know who the buyer personas are that they are working with (their needs, goals and challenges) so that sales can have better conversations with leads and services can provide better support to customers.

Of course you need to GSD and DO marketing, but you’re doing your business more harm than good by spending your time and resources marketing to the wrong people. Thank you for mentioning that you’re a fan of the HubSpot persona template. I would also like to throw in the fact that we now have a free tool to help speed up this process as well. (www.makemypersona.com)

Thanks as always for being an advocate of HubSpot and inbound marketing!

All the best,

Lisa

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